


Of Seaweed and Sycamores

by ActualFandomTrash



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Angst, Anxiety, Connor Deserves Happiness, Depression, Drug Use, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mer!Evan, My first fanfic oh god, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, connor is just a sad boi, evan loves trees, he thinks humans are cool but scary, someone save him :(
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 13:28:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11738022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ActualFandomTrash/pseuds/ActualFandomTrash
Summary: Connor is a human with a not-so-great family situation, and uses the beach as a safe haven away from them. Evan is an anxious merman with an interest in humans, even if they intimidate and scare him. Both of them want someone to depend on, even if it takes a rocky start to get there.





	Of Seaweed and Sycamores

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fanfic, so sorry if it sucks!! aa
> 
> constructive criticism is always greatly appreciated

Usually it was bright, populated with laughing families and barking dogs, sand flying every which way and vibrant umbrellas stuck firmly into the ground to ward off impending sun burns for those lounging about and choosing not to take part in the festivities. Now it was dead quiet, save for the soft crashing of waves on the sand and the shuffle of Connor’s feet as he trudged forward, clutching one of his hands and following the seashore. 

Connor kicked a forgotten plastic orange shovel out of his way and grunted, curling his hand closer to his chest and wincing as the bruised and bleeding knuckles scraped lightly against the fabric of his dark grey hoodie. It probably wasn’t the smartest idea-- you can only wander around in the dark without accompaniment for so long before you get mugged or murdered, but Connor wasn’t really that concerned. He figured he could fend for himself, even if his hand was a big banged up from punching his bedroom wall in anger after a particularly vicious argument with his parents. 

_“The principal called again today… Smoking weed during again? I thought you said you were getting better!”_

The comment had seemed mild enough at the time, or at least until Larry overheard from the room over and decided to get involved and start the yelling match, not to mention banning Connor from using his car until further notice, thinking that it would stop Connor from meeting up with his dealer. That’s what had really pissed Connor off. He could deal with the screaming, hell, it was practically part of his daily routine by now, but now he’d probably have to ride the bus and deal with the scowls and fearful glances thrown his way even more than usual, probably coupled now with several sneers and smirks, and he could only take so much of that before he ditched school once again, which would result in more screaming, anger, and weed. Honestly, at this point it was a vicious circle he just couldn’t seem to break out of.

Well, at least Connor was still within walking distance of the beach. Other than getting high, it was probably the only other place that he could finally drop his guard and just relax for once. Not that he’d let anyone else know that. This was his safe haven; he couldn’t have his sucky family members tainting it. Besides, it’s not like they’d exactly approve of him sneaking out at night. They’d probably assume he was meeting up with his dealer or something. 

Connor snorted at that thought, and his lips curved up real-but-wobbly smile. He closed his eyes for a second, letting out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and listened to the waves’ repetitive and soothing sounds. 

His eyes fluttered back open, flashing to the bright silver moon and back down to the froth-tipped waves as he gave a shallow inhale and savored the salty scent of the night breeze. Why no one else ever came to walk by the ocean at 2 am was unfathomable. Oh wait, right, people actually have lives they need to deal with in the morning, bright and early. 

Connor’s smile dropped at that and he scowled, eyebrows furrowed, scuffing the tip of his menacing black combat boot into the greyish wet sand. “This is stupid,” he muttered darkly, crossing his arms and suppressing a shiver at the cold breeze. Jeez, he really should’ve worn something warmer.

Bouncing around on the heels of his boots, Connor cast his gaze around and let it settle unceremoniously on a lone piece of driftwood. He raised an eyebrow, a cocky smirk on his lips as he strode forward and grasped its end, dragging it a bit further up the beach to some dry sand. 

After about five minutes of scouting, Connor had gathered a petty decent sized pile of wood on the sand. He fished around in his hoodie pocket and closed his hand around a lighter. He pulled it out and flicked on a flame. He leaned forward slightly and placed the flame next to a piece of wood and waited for it to catch.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ow!”

Evan recoiled, rubbing his shoulder where Jared had punched it. He flicked his tail, disgruntled and kinda upset. “What was that for!?” 

Sure, it hadn’t actually hurt that much, but what kind of friend-- err, family friend (Jared refused to let Evan leave out the “family,” even in thought) hit someone they were relatively friendly with for no reason? Had he messed up in some way? He didn’t think he had… But what if it was because Evan had messed up the hunting patrol last week? Wait, no, it couldn’t be that; he had already apologized profusely and Jared didn’t even care, it was mostly just the older merpeople who did… Evan shook his head, silently reprimanding himself, and turned to Jared, ready to plead forgiveness for whatever he had done this time. “Jared, I--” 

He paused, mouth opening and closing a few times before he squinted a little at the weird black-rimmed thing perched upon the bridge of Jared’s nose, and promptly forgot all about Jared’s strange greeting. Jared puffed out his chest proudly, obviously having interpreted Evan’s confused silence as awe. 

“Cool, huh?” he smirked, tossing his hair back and finger gunning and winking at a passing pair of mermaids. One giggled and blushed, lifting a webbed hand to cover her mouth as her cheeks darkened. The other flipped him off, grabbed her friend’s elbow, and dragged her away. 

Evan blinked, still staring at the contraption sitting on Jared’s face. “Are those… the things humans wear?” 

Jared nodded a bit too eagerly and the glasses floated off of him. His hand shot out and grabbed it swiftly, though he took care to not scratch it up with his claws. He twisted them around in his hands, letting Evan admire them in different angles. 

Upon closer inspection, Evan noticed they were missing the glass. “Where’d you get them?” he asked, hesitantly reaching out a hand to poke a finger through where the glass would’ve been. 

Jared reacted quickly, backing up and nearly crushing the glasses against his chest. “Don’t touch them!” he yelped, worriedly fiddling with the item’s legs. Evan backed up too, flustering and flailing around a little. A few surrounding fish scampered off to avoid being hit with his tail, and sand swirled up around him, darkening the water slightly. “S-Sorry!” he squeaked, tugging anxiously on the necklace he had made himself with twine, seaweed, and a few unoccupied seashells several years back. 

Jared huffed. “Whatever. Anyways, I got it at this shipwreck the patrol found yesterday,” he rolled his eyes and spoke in the blandest tone he could evidently muster, but Evan could clearly see he was struggling to contain his geeky excitement. Jared stuck the glasses back on his face carefully, blinking rapidly as if he had to adjust to the vision through the glassless rims.

Evan quirked a shy smile, not wanting to alert Jared to the fact that his nerdiness was actually no surprise to anyone and he really had no use hiding it. Besides, Evan himself was silently geeking out too. It wasn’t everyday a shipwreck was discovered that hadn’t been stripped of all its treasures. It was usually frowned upon for a merperson to collect human items, but that didn’t stop those who were determined enough to maintain their collections. Evan personally had a small hoard of random human items, but he preferred to keep that mostly secret because honestly he’d probably have a heart attack dealing with so many judgmental stares. Jared however, apparently thought that whatever disapproving head shakes he’d be thrown were worth it. _Kudos to him,_ Evan thought supportingly.

“Soooo,” Jared jolted Evan out of his thoughts, and Evan was already feeling a mounting dread at Jared’s tone. It was the one that he used when he was either trying to coax information out of someone, trying to harass someone, or trying to get someone to do something. In this case it was the latter. “Wanna come with next time?” he smirked, probably fully expecting Evan to refuse so that he could get on with taunting him until he finally gave in.

That’s usually how it went. Jared, despite denying it, didn’t particularly like leaving their shoal by himself, so he usually dragged Evan along to give him a sense of comfort, even though lord knows Evan couldn’t even fight a clam shell if he tried. Hence why he’s never asked to join possibly dangerous border patrols with the rest of the merpeople. But now that Evan thought about it, his collection did need some updating. You can only try to gauge the purpose of a fork for so long before you stab a piece of seaweed or something and solve the mystery.

Nonetheless, Evan bit his lip and considered it for a few seconds, mentally weighing the pros and cons. He nodded, coming to a decision. “S-Sure Jared, I’d love to!” 

Jared frowned, and Evan figured he had probably been looking forward to a good taunting. Oh well. Jared’s frown vanished into a grin. “Alright Hansen, I’ll pick you up tomorrow at night so we don’t get caught, and we can head on over from there. Don’t freak out when I show up this time; it sucked explaining to your neighbor why you were shrieking at like one in the morning last time. Anyways, I got some chicks to pick up with my insanely cool glasses now. See ya, loser.”

Evan watched as Jared swerved around and swam away, most likely to go fawn over his glasses some more instead of “picking up chicks” like he had claimed. Evan shook his head with a faint smile and headed home. 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evan floated around restlessly in his living room, fiddling with his necklace as he waited. His mom had left a few hours prior, and now he was all alone in a semi-dark house. He stifled a yawn. Earlier he had taken a nap, but he was so used to be sleeping at this time that his eyelids still felt heavy.

A mixture of chitters and clicks sounded by his ear, and a high-pitched shriek escaped Evan before he could clamp his hands over his mouth. Luckily, it wasn’t a serial killer and was only his seahorse, Kelp. Evan beamed, reaching out a hand for her to swirl around, affectionately nipping at his fingernails and avoiding the sharp claws made for spearing and ripping apart fish. Evan trilled happily, patting gently at her reddish-brown head. 

A loud knocking interrupted Evan and Kelp’s game of tag around the living room that they had begun, and this time Evan didn’t flip out. He made his way to the door and opened it to reveal a certain red-tailed merman floating there. 

Without further ado, Jared snatched Evan’s arm and proceeded to drag him in the direction of the shipwreck.

When they had left the borders of their shoal and reached the edges of the shipwreck, Jared gave a loud whoop. The demolished ship seemed a bit unsteady and seemed to be in the process of getting sucked in the sand, but it would hold up fine. “Evan, why are you just standing there? Hurry up,” he urged, darting into the wreck and immediately starting to sift through the sand and clutters of splintered and broken wood to search for anything interesting. Evan hesitated only a second longer before grinning and joining him.

While searching, Evan felt his claws snag on the edge of something. His fins flared out in alarm and he twisted around to see what he had caught his claw on. What met his gaze was an unraveling roll of pink ribbon. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and prodded at it, thinking the way it curled in the current was pretty. He picked it up, satisfied with his find. “Hey, Jared!” he called excitedly, but when he turned he realized that the area was empty, and all that met his call was his own echoing voice. He let out a concerned trill, mind rushing to the worst case scenarios. 

“Jared?” he called nervously, swimming out of the shipwreck and looping around it several times but to no avail. Jared had disappeared. He tightened his grip on his ribbon, and, thoughts swirling around at the speed of a tornado, blindly headed off in a random direction.

After around ten minutes, he glanced around quickly. It took a few seconds for it to settle in that he had never been around here before. The ocean floor’s terrain was slightly different, more rocky, and the fish were smaller. Also, the surface seemed way too close for comfort. He felt his chest constrict, and he tugged hard at his necklace in a desperate attempt to expel some of his anxiety. Tears gathered at his eyes. Where am I where am I where am I where, everything seemed to blur and he knew that he needed to calm down if he wanted to avoid a panic attack.

He let himself sink to the ground, and he wrapped his tail around himself. He tipped his head back and fixed his sight on the shimmering surface of the water, focusing on his breathing until it evened out and he felt better. Now to figure out where I am. He knew that it would be difficult to make sense of his surroundings from down here, so he decided that breaching the water’s surface might be more effective.

With two hard beats of his tail, he rocketed upward, shooting through the surface. The air felt strange on his skin, but not in an unpleasant way-- just new. His head and neck bobbed up and down as small waves made their way to wherever waves went. Wait.

He stared at one of the waves as it made its way past him, and he shifted his body to watch it. He squinted. Waves aren’t usually this small, are they?

Then, he froze as he witnessed the wave roll onto the damp, exposed sand on the… shore. Evan’s face whitened in fear. He had never been near the shore-- heck, he had never even seen it. Only extremely experienced and respected merpeople ever came across it, and it was usually for the sake of a mission or something important. The most experience Evan had ever had was catching a few measly fish and he certainly wasn’t here for any reason but by total accident. God, he was such a mess. Evan buried his head in his hands, but not before he glimpsed a dark shadow moving around a bright flare of orange light. 

Interest piqued despite his growing nerves, he dropped his hands and silently swam closer to the point where he could make out details. Ripples bellowed out from around him where he shifted around quietly, messing with his necklace again. 

A tall, kinda lanky boy with shoulder-length dark brown hair stood next to what Evan could only assume was fire from the stories older merpeople had told. Evan held back a gasp, pupils blown wide in fright. In the stories, fire only ended up with death and destruction. _Is the human in trouble? Is he burning? Oh my god, is he dying??_

Evan gulped. As much as he knew that humans were dangerous, that some of them hunted merpeople and they were the reason merpeople had to be so careful all the time, he couldn’t just let it die!

He raced toward the shore, not slowing down lest his rationality stop him from saving this poor creature’s life. He barreled forward, flopping down onto the sand, tail still half submerged in the shallow water, and started to gather his concentration. When he was still a child, he had always struggled with manipulating water, and that struggle still extended to the present.

He noticed in the far recesses of his mind that the human had turned to look at him with an initially sour expression, which quickly morphed into confusion, and then terror as he registered Evan’s tail. 

A portion of water nearby started to shift, pulling itself higher and higher into a medium-sized wave. Evan nearly trembled with the mental energy he was exerting and forced the wave to rear up. With a loud gasp, he lost concentration and it crashed down, but it worked out in his favor anyways. The water cascaded down with a roar onto the flame and human, putting out the fire and drenching the human head to toe. 

The human yelled and stumbled back, squeezing his eyes shut from what Evan assumed was the saltwater and blindly fell back, trembling and barely keeping its footing.

When it opened its eyes again, Evan was long gone.


End file.
